CARLSBAD, Calif., Dec. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Ionis
Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: IONS) and its Board of Directors
announced today that, effective January
2020, Ionis' founder and CEO, Stanley T. Crooke, M.D., Ph.D., will be
transitioning from chief executive officer to executive chairman of
Ionis' board of directors. As executive chairman, Dr. Crooke will
continue to be responsible for the activities of the board and will
remain active in the company, providing strategic advice and
continuing to participate in the scientific activities of the
company. The board has selected Brett P.
Monia, Ph.D., who has been Ionis' chief operating officer
for the last year and a member of the Ionis team since its founding
nearly 30 years ago, to serve as Ionis' chief executive officer
starting in January 2020.
Dr. Crooke said of this planned transition, "I am very pleased
with the state of Ionis today and I believe that in January 2020, when the transition will be
effected, the company will be even stronger. The Board and I are
confident that implementing this transition in 2020 provides the
optimum timing to ensure a smooth transition and provide successful
long-term leadership for the company. We are equally confident that
we have the right person to lead Ionis moving forward. Brett is a
founding member of Ionis, an outstanding scientist and a
well-recognized expert in antisense technology. He is a business
leader in biopharma with broad experience in multiple aspects of
the industry. As an executive officer at Ionis for the past seven
years, Brett contributes to all strategic decisions."
Dr. Monia stated, "I am excited about the opportunity to advance
Ionis to the next chapter in its evolution. The company's future
has never been brighter. With the new medicines in our pipeline, we
are offering more hope to more patients with devastating diseases
with inadequate or no treatment options. I am committed to
ensuring that Ionis continues to advance these important medicines
and our antisense platform, while continuing to build on the
company's financial strength, so that we can continue to provide
great benefit to even more patients and to our shareholders. I am
grateful to Stan for his remarkable vision, creativity and passion
in leading Ionis since its founding almost 30 years ago."
Dr. Crooke founded Ionis Pharmaceuticals to pursue the
development of a new drug discovery technology—antisense. Since
that time the company has made significant advancements in
antisense technology. During his tenure at Ionis, he has led the
scientific development of a new platform for drug discovery,
antisense technology, and engineered the creation of one of the
largest and most advanced development pipelines in the
biotechnology industry. Today, Ionis is a multi-product company and
the leader in RNA-targeted therapies, having developed breakthrough
medicines, such as SPINRAZA® and TEGSEDI™, for
patients with rare genetic diseases, and has a pipeline of over 45
medicines in development or on the market for treating patients
with a broad range of diseases—from rare to common ones.
Dr. Crooke has been recognized throughout his career as a leader
in the field. He has published nearly 500 scientific publications,
edited more than 20 books, and has numerous patents. He was named
Man of the Year by The Crohn's Disease Society; he received the SMA
Breakthrough Award and he achieved the Lifetime Achievement Award
from Scrip. He received the 2016 Oligonucleotide Therapeutic
Society Lifetime Achievement Award and the E.B. Hershberg Award for
Important Discoveries in Medicinally Active Substances presented by
The American Chemical Society. Dr. Crooke was named by Nature
Biotechnology as one of the most influential individuals in
biotechnology and has received the Director of the Year Award from
the Corporate Directors Forum, the Distinguished Scientist Award
from the American Chemical Society (San Diego Chapter), the Helix
Award, for the most important innovation in biotechnology by the
Biotechnology Industry Organization, BIO, Stony Brook University
and the Center for Biotechnology, and the Ernst and Young and
Entrepreneur Award of the Year Award as well as Distinguished
Alumnus at Baylor College of Medicine
and at Butler University.
Dr. Monia is a founding member of Ionis. He has been an
executive officer of the company since the beginning of 2012 and
the chief operating officer since the beginning of 2018. He has
served as the senior vice president of translational medicine and
as the franchise leader for programs in oncology and rare diseases
at Ionis. As the former head of drug discovery at Ionis, Dr. Monia
was responsible for establishing strategic directions for
preclinical drug discovery research focused on RNA-directed
therapeutic platforms, establishing and supervising of early
clinical development strategies, and coordinating research
activities with clinical investigators, consultants, and with
corporate partners. Dr. Monia has authored more than 200 primary
scientific publications. His contributions include research into
the medicinal chemistry and mechanisms of action of
oligonucleotide-based drugs in cell culture and in animals, and in
the establishment of numerous preclinical and clinical programs,
many of which have resulted in clinical proof of concept across a
broad range of therapeutic areas, including oncology,
cardiometabolic diseases, inflammation, respiratory diseases,
neurodegenerative diseases and rare diseases. Programs under Dr.
Monia's direct supervision have resulted in the clinical
development of more than 40 antisense-based drugs to date,
resulting in multiple market authorization approvals. Dr. Monia has
also served as President of the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics
Society (OTS), and currently serves on the Board of Directors for
Dynacure Therapeutics and as an adjunct professor of Biology at San
Diego State University.
About Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
As the leader in
RNA-targeted drug discovery and development, Ionis has created an
efficient, broadly applicable, proprietary antisense technology
platform with the potential to treat diseases where no other
therapeutic approaches have proven effective. Our drug discovery
platform has served as a springboard for actionable promise and
realized hope for patients with unmet needs – such as children and
adults with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). We created
SPINRAZA® (nusinersen)* and are proud to have brought
new hope to the SMA community by developing the first and only
approved treatment for this disease.
Our sights are set on all the patients we have yet to reach with
a pipeline of more than 40 drugs with the potential to treat
patients with cardiovascular disease, rare diseases, neurological
diseases, infectious diseases and cancer. We created TEGSEDI™
(inotersen) the world's first RNA-targeted therapeutic approved for
the treatment of polyneuropathy of hereditary transthyretin (TTR)
amyloidosis (ATTR) in adult patients that our affiliate Akcea
Therapeutics is commercializing. Together with Akcea, we are also
bringing new medicines to patients with cardiometabolic lipid
disorders.
To learn more about Ionis follow us on twitter @ionispharma or
visit http://ir.ionispharma.com/.
*Spinraza is marketed by Biogen.
Ionis' Forward-looking Statement
This press release
includes forward-looking statements regarding Ionis
Pharmaceuticals' business and the therapeutic and commercial
potential of Ionis' technologies, products in development and
commercial products, including SPINRAZA® and TEGSEDI™
(inotersen). Any statement describing Ionis' goals, expectations,
financial or other projections, intentions or beliefs is a
forward-looking statement and should be considered an at-risk
statement. Such statements are subject to certain risks and
uncertainties, particularly those inherent in the process of
discovering, developing and commercializing drugs that are safe and
effective for use as human therapeutics, and in the endeavor of
building a business around such drugs. Ionis' forward-looking
statements also involve assumptions that, if they never materialize
or prove correct, could cause its results to differ materially from
those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
Although Ionis' forward-looking statements reflect the good faith
judgment of its management, these statements are based only on
facts and factors currently known by Ionis. As a result, you are
cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements. These
and other risks concerning Ionis' programs are described in
additional detail in Ionis' annual report on Form 10-K for the year
ended December 31, 2017, and most
recent Form 10-Q quarterly filing, which are on file with the SEC.
Copies of this and other documents are available from the
Company.
In this press release, unless the context requires otherwise,
"Ionis," "Company," "we," "our," and "us" refers to Ionis
Pharmaceuticals and its subsidiaries.
Ionis Pharmaceuticals™ is a trademark of Ionis
Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Akcea Therapeutics™ is a trademark
of Akcea Therapeutics, Inc. TEGSEDI™ is a trademark of
Akcea Therapeutics, Inc. SPINRAZA® is a registered
trademark of Biogen.
View original content to download
multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ionis-announces-plans-for-management-transitions-in-2020-300769957.html
SOURCE Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.